Joanna On The Trail

Every hike has to start somewhere. Mine started at REI.

On Monday afternoon I dropped Lee off at the airport and made a detour to REI in Tampa. After a leisurely 2.5 hours, I walked out with a daypack, trail running shoes, a sun shirt, a bucket hat – a full set of Florida gear so I don’t have to cart everything back and forth across the country. Retirement luxury, unlocked.

The next morning I laced up those brand new trail runners and set off from our place in St Pete Beach, bound for my mom’s place in downtown St Petersburg — just over 10 miles away.

In case you didn’t know, Florida is flat. Really, really flat. My total elevation gain for the day was a whopping 110 feet, spread across 10 miles. This is far different from my upcoming Colorado and England hikes, but getting miles in is getting miles in, and I’ll take it!

The route took me over the Bayway bridges — always beautiful, and busy with walkers and joggers on a Tuesday morning, so I fit right in — then across 54th Ave and up through the USF St Pete campus. I took a few classes there back in the day, and it’s remarkable how much it’s grown. Once I moved into the more urban stretches I probably looked a bit more out of place with my daypack and hiking hat, but no one seemed to mind.

The hardest part of the whole walk wasn’t the distance — it was the heat. Actually, as we say in Florida, it’s not the heat it’s the humidity. Mid-70s and 80% humidity at 9am. Florida in May is no joke, and it will only get worse over the next few months. I’m going to have to get earlier starts.

I finished in 2:45, and arrived to find my mom happy to see me and her chihuahua mix Elmo absolutely beside himself with excitement. After a quick shower the three of us headed to Nueva Cantina to celebrate Cinco de Mayo — which felt like exactly the right way to end a first retirement hike.

Oh, and I forgot to take a single photo. Working on that.